Morris Minor Owners Club

I'm at my wits end. I've been trying to sort this for 3 days.
Reinstalled the distributor drive spindle as per the workshop manual ie. No. 4 cylinder at TDC on compression stroke, insert spindle with slot vertical, small offset towards front of engine. Engages camshaft with the slot at approx 11o'clock position.
Reinstall distributor, no problem.
Set static timing with No 1 cylinder at TDC on compression stroke using a lamp circuit as suggested in the manual ie rotate distributor anti clockwise until the lamp goes out.

Ignition on and start, engine turns over but doesn't fire, occasional loud back fire. No matter how I adjust the distributor I get nought.

I have repeated the above approximately 5 times now. I have even swapped distributors, although I know both are good, still no result.
Definitely getting spark and fuel, obviously not at the right time though.

What am I missing?

I did note that one manual suggests setting the static timing with no 1 at TDC, whereas another says nothing about which cylinder should be at TDC although it could be assumed it is talking about no. 4 by the way it is written.

Any help greatly appreciated. I've had it.

It sounds like it's out 180 degree, I managed to do this on my Commer engine re-build and had the same symptoms , ended up twisting the dizzy right round to get it running. Give that a go and if it works then you can work from there in setting it all up properly.

Just move the HT leads round two spaces on the dizzy cap.... Or - take the drive spindle back out and do with #1 at TDC compression....

easy to get it 180 out. As above get it onto tdc on no 1,take leads off cap,fit dizzy and line up lead one to the appropriate terminal to correspond where the rotor is pointing and put rest back into cap as per the firing order.then set basic timing with marks on pully.

Mr Haynes suggests that the engine is set to TDC on No1, insert the distributor drive so that the larger section is at the top, with the right hand side of the slot just below horizontal.

When the drive meshes with the cam it should twist round so the right hand side of the slot is at about 2 o'clock.

I think this was how mine came off as I noted the position before stripping the engine, I seem to remember the lead for No1 cylinder being at about 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock ish.

What ever set the drive up, put the dizzy in, set the engine to TDC on No1, look where the rotor arm is pointing and put No1 lead in that section, follow round with the rest anti clock in the correct order.

Good luck.